Tips on profiting?

[Frendo]

It's almost 10 years too late now.

Just remember how much they spent on players like RNH while he was the flavor of the day rookie, and so he did 4 assists on a game and got compared with Gretzky and such nonsense.
There was some +$10000.$20000 RNH cards which were sold on ebay during his 2 first years, and guess what, they're peanuts now, since RNH didn't turned into a 100-point player or the next Gretzky, like almost everyone was so sure of it.
Hertl cards were also sold by insane numbers after his 4-goals game.

It's way too risky to speculating with NHL cards, unless we're talking about vintage cards of HoF:ers.
There're way too many "flash in the pan" players, huge draft busts, or players who falls off the cliff into the oblivion so fast after some good season in NHL.

Plus I has seen that so many nice hockey cards are struggling to sell on ebay (even for peanuts) during the last 2-3 years now. The players which I were collecting before which were sold at the $60-$80 range, for a pretty nice and pretty rare autographed/memorabilia card for 5-8 years ago with lots of unique bidders, can't even gets sold for $20-$30 (or even below $10) in nowadays with EVEN rarer cards!
How crazy isn't it to be able to getting a #/10 Upper Deck The Cup card with multi-colored patches and autograph for just $30 with like 2-3 another bidders, when you had like to coughing up to +$100-$200 (with 20-30 bidders) for just some years ago for a similar card, this just shows the deep decline of the NHL cards on ebay & others!

But it's your own $$$ and choice, if now you wants to gamble, so why not then....

[jackpot]

Hockey cards are very popular these days and they will still be for many years. Upper deck did a fantastic marketing job creating a buzz about their products, like the recent spa release.

[Pacman69]

Collect upper deck young guns and sp authentic sets a year or more after release when prices have dropped from initial hype. Sell when someone has a banner season or team has a cup run. Rebuy a year or more later when cards drop back again


look at draisaitl and curse.....well we missed that one!


pacman

[canucksfan007]

look at draisaitl and curse.....well we missed that one!

pacman

Speak for yourself =P

[10-4 collector]

That's a very very dishonest answer, people that are thinking of making money off hockey cards are first thinking to make a lot of money, like everyone, not just in hockey cards but in society in general, people wants to make money.

Time is the single most important aspect to make money, if you ignore the time aspect, you'll never make real money, you'll keep flipping $1 to $10 cards wasting time.

If you like doing this, time isn’t a matter. It's not his main job! If he likes doing this on his free time and he's making a bit of money out of it, why not?

[JayT_59]

Trying to make big money quick on modern cards will always be a gamble. Guys like RNH and Yak can bust. An injury can happen. Etc. Only way I see it is possible is buying and reselling bulk lots of Superstar cards in popular sets.

Another way to make money would be buying lots of gradable vintage cards, subbing to PSA and reselling. If you have the eye for it and the connections to keep a steady inflow of good cards you could make a steady income.

[jackpot]

If you like doing this, time isn’t a matter. It's not his main job! If he likes doing this on his free time and he's making a bit of money out of it, why not?

Have you ever met someone that told you "I just want to make a bit of money selling hockey cards, I don't want to make a lot of money, just a bit"

No one ever said that in the history of hockey cards lol

[jackpot]

Trying to make big money quick on modern cards will always be a gamble. Guys like RNH and Yak can bust. An injury can happen. Etc. Only way I see it is possible is buying and reselling bulk lots of Superstar cards in popular sets.

Another way to make money would be buying lots of gradable vintage cards, subbing to PSA and reselling. If you have the eye for it and the connections to keep a steady inflow of good cards you could make a steady income.

Most people will choose the quick money route, the quick rich scheme, which often fails. People that make money have a vision and they think long term.

Best way to make money in hockey cards is to buy 10K+ worth of McDavid rookies, set them aside for 10+ years and double/triple/quadruple your money without doing anything. You can keep your day time job and not worry about flipping cards making $5 an hour with all the works and headaches that comes with it.

[JayT_59]

I agree with this. At the end of the day I think there needs to be a passion for the hobby apart from financial return or patience will run out.

Most people will choose the quick money route, the quick rich scheme, which often fails. People that make money have a vision and they think long term.

Best way to make money in hockey cards is to buy 10K+ worth of McDavid rookies, set them aside for 10+ years and double/triple/quadruple your money without doing anything. You can keep your day time job and not worry about flipping cards making $5 an hour with all the works and headaches that comes with it.

[30ranfordfan]

.

The scenario that you presented is the absolute best case scenario where the seller is willing to let go his cards for cheap and the buyer sells 100% of the cards. This best case scenario doesn't come up often, it does happen but when it happens you also have to be lucky to be the first one to jump in before someone else jump in.

Most frequent and realistic scenario of a bulk purchase is someone selling his collection at a reasonable price and then you take the time and have the patience to flip the cards.

And how many hours will it requires to make some profit? It depends on the lot purchased of course, most of them though will require a lot of hours flipping the cards which in the end is not worth it, it's like less than McDonald's wage

You seem to take time too much into consideration. I dont think anyone would recommend flipping cards as a profession. But the OP wants to do this as a hobby, something they like to do in their free time. Something many of us like to do in our free time. I enjoy the entire process, buying cards .... wheeling and dealing to make profit ..... keeping the ones I like or spending my profits back into cards ..... growing the PC.

None of us are worried that we only make "x" an hour. We have jobs, but if you can make money doing your hobby, thats a nice bonus

That's a very very dishonest answer, people that are thinking of making money off hockey cards are first thinking to make a lot of money, like everyone, not just in hockey cards but in society in general, people wants to make money.

Time is the single most important aspect to make money, if you ignore the time aspect, you'll never make real money, you'll keep flipping $1 to $10 cards wasting time.

Did the big multi-quote thing here, sorta replying to all of this at once.

The example I used: Buying 50 mid-end cards for "half price" and then trying to sell them at "three quarters price" (so they'd move quickly) is over simplifying it..... makes it sound really easy... and of course I agree that's not the case.

But if you're buying 50 cards for $50 each, that had been priced at $100 (and the $100 was NOT a crazy asking price for any of them): Chances that you can take the $2500 investment and turn it into $3500 (or more) are really good.

So time keeps coming up here. Again, I'm 100% in agreement that time is valuable. My time (professionally) does not come cheap. My employer pays well for it, and they sell it to others for quite a bit more :)

Yet I'm on this forum, and taking 5-10 minutes to reply in this thread, being paid nothing for it. Why? Well, I think like most members here: I enjoy the conversation. I like to turn my brain off from "important" things, and spend a bit of time focusing on "fun" things.

So is time valuable? Of course it is. I know I find it difficult to find a 90 minute window that I can dedicate to "card time". I'm simply too busy most days to sit down and do that. I'd like to, I enjoy it, but it just doesn't work like that (often).

So when it comes to buying and selling hockey cards, and placing time into the profit equation: I really think it depends on the circumstances. If you're going to treat it as a full time job, and depend on it for income: They yes, the amount of time you put in has to be a factor. If you're spending 60 hours a week flipping cards - and you make about as much money as you would working part-time at McDonalds: Maybe you should reconsider what you're doing.

But there's a lot of people who enjoy the buy/sell thing, use the money they make to fund the growth of their collection, and that's all part of the larger hobby for them.

If I spend 40 hours a week working, and 10 hours a week trying to find good deals / flip cards for a profit: I suspect I'd be much farther ahead if I just worked 50 hours a week.... but for a lot of people, that wouldn't be nearly as much fun.